Ink Printers – Choosing the Right One for your Needs

If you already have an ink printer see the related article “Printer Ink – Choosing the right cartridge for your needs”.

Material Covered

This article covers the broad range of general purpose document/photo printers and multifunction devices available as at January 2006. It does not consider specialised printers such as dye sublimation photo printers or A3 machines.

If you only print off a few emails and occasional photos your printer will be less sophisticated than if you print a lot of text and photos.

You may need a printer for business, need colour but can’t afford a colour laser printer. Printer or Multifunction?

A multifunction device – print/scan/photocopy and sometimes fax can be a good investment. Occasionally a very good machine will fall into the lower price range and, not as often, a poor machine will be higher priced.

Around $200 and under

Both printers and multifunction devices in this class tend to have two ink cartridges – 1 black – 1 tri colour – slower print speeds and lower resolution. If you buy an extended warranty make sure that the whole machine is covered, including the print head.

Machines in this area get faster, with higher resolution and, in particular, photo printing speeds can go up markedly.

Computer Bundles

If you are buying a new computer and it has a printer or multifunction bundled with it, be careful. Most bundled machines are at the lower end and may not suit your needs.